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capt turnpike writes "If you're hooked up to a fat pipe, but want mobility, it looks like the new 802.11n standard might have some promise. eWEEK.com got their hands on some of the upcoming products and put the new devices through their paces." From the article: "The 802.11n task group is aware of the current draft's issues with legacy wireless LAN devices (specifically with how 802.11n shares bandwidth with attached legacy clients), and representatives from Cisco and Motorola broke off to look into the issues before the next meeting of the draft subcommittee, which is scheduled for May. Expectations vary widely, depending on whom you talk to. In previous conversations with Dave Borison, Airgo's director of product marketing, we leaned that Airgo is not making chip sets based on the draft standard because the company thinks the issue of legacy interoperability is significant enough to necessitate small modifications to the silicon."

Will it let my friends come over with their motley of wireless devices (b & g & landline) and play a simple LAN game? If we can't all use it for one game and it's not backwards compatible... that's just wrong... WRONG! Seriously though, the article suggests to not purchase n devices with the hopes of upgrading to whatever standard is ratified later...

From the article:

We also found that Linksys' draft 802.11n router caused performance issues with legacy 802.11g networks.

AND:

The current draft of the 802.11n standard was approved for letter ballot in March; the full standard is expected to be ratified by the second quarter of 2007.

AND:

With this uncertainty in mind, it is not advisable to invest in these products lock, stock and barrel. Enterprise-grade WLAN manufacturers continue to wait for the standard to fully bake, and enterprise customers should do the same.

For the record, I think regardless if it's called pre-N or "draft 802.11n", it is still isn't the final product... so beware what you buy.

I realize I'll probably get modded down for suggesting this, but why don't you guys just set up a wired LAN? You all probably are plugging power cords in, so there's already a bit of a cable tangle. If you all plug into a wired network, you won't have nearly as many lag/interference problems.

"Are you serious? Ok if we are talking laptops I'd agree. But for desktops (which the average gaming machine is). Wired is the way to go. Why sacrifice speed for a very small convience."

Say, how does a computer with six ethernet lines, a keyboard and a mouse cable snaking out of it look compared to a case with power in, monitor cable out, and bluetooth and wireless for, respectively, peripherals and as many directed wireless signals going off in different directions as it takes to achieve the same bandwid

Why in the hell do you have six ethernet lines running out of a single computer? What are you doing that requires more than 1 line from the server and 1 line from each computer going directly to a 10/100/1000 switch? Get some velcro cable ties and the "jumble of wires" practically goes away.

I don't know any gamer in their right mind who would choose wireless over wired.

They were talking LAN party. Internet connection isn't the point. Within a LAN, be it a gaming LAN or office network LAN. I've never seen a reason to sacrifice overall network speed for desktop users for wireless. (Aside from the cost savings of not running hardlines to every office)

You serious? You know there are other reasons for routers besides linking one computer to the net through a DSL connection. Internet speed is but one of many concerns when purchasing a router. Some of us use multiple computers and move multi gigabyte files between the computers. Try doing that with an "11mb" 802.11b connection... Then try it with 54mb 802.11g, then try it with a 100mb wire or even 1gb wire... Instead of hours to move so methi

Apart from what others said (p2p between PCs on the network), I'm still using an old 11Mbit WAP (yes, quite old) and from my bedroom I get shitty signal quality. Even right next to the router, the best I can pull is ~5Mbit. My connection has been 8Mbit down for some time now, and more recently, it's gone up to 24Mbit. My internet speed is severely crippled by wireless.
This pre-N stuff is also very expensive - I'll need to get a new router and a new wireless card for each computer. I'm just going to get my

Yeah, a "horsed carriage" that's ~20x as fast (gigabit) as those new-fangled "horseless" whirligigs (802.11g). If that metaphor was valid, Henry Ford would be remembered only by his neighbors as that crazy anti-semite down the street with the slow contraption that never cought on.

When cars were first introduced, they were way slower and far less reliable than a horse carrage. Perhaps a better rebuttle would have been, that wired networks may be a "horse carrage", but we are in the "late 1800's" of networking

I have to use 802.11g on my desktop because it's upstairs and I don't feel like running cables through the walls - I play games on it regularly have never had a single issue with performance. There is always 1 and sometimes as many as 3 other 802.11 networks overlapping and on occasion the microwave gets used while I am gaming. The only thing that ever caused a noticeable degradation of signal strength was my 2.4ghz phone - even with the lowered signal strength though my latency was completely fine, my tota

My sisters boyfriend has a setup similar to yours except that everytime someone picks up the phone, his signal is dropped completely. He use to be downstairs (the DSL line and switch are on the 2nd floor) and that would happen all the time. I offered to run a cable down to the room (there was already a cable in the room above him, which use to be my room), but my dad insisted that wireless would be fine and that he probably just needed a new wireless card (that part turned out to be true).Fast forward a

Yeah and what happens when someone thinks it's a good idea to microwave a snack while chatting on a 2.4GHz cordless phone during the middle of some intense 802.11g/n gaming? Say goodbye to your packets!

Power goes from you to the local outlet. If you're having a bigger LAN party, then you could be connecting to somebody in a different room, or on a different floor. Every room will have power, but not every room is necessarily going to be wired to the master ethernet switch, and crossing floors is even more of a pain in the butt.

There is shared bandwidth among associated stations, enourmous overhead in the sessions, and the possibility for easy interference. I've seen wireless keyboards that will screw up 802.11b/g links, in addition to microwaves, phones, handheld radios, other 802.11b/g networks, etc. Alos, performance degrades with link load.As an example, at my house I can't reliably watch an xvid movie across 802.11g. I get excellent signal, a 54Mbps link, and low latency. That is, I get those until I try to watch a movie,

Yeah, if the n standard hasn't been finalized, then these aren't the n's you're looking for.
How is this different from the "Pre N" devices of a year or so ago?
OH! It's CLOSER to what the N standard will be.
Are Linksys and the like SO desperate for a new shiny to dangle that they'll make products that may or may not be compatible with the standard?

I'll stick with my 802.11g thank you. Let me know when I have a need to bother with upgrading.

1) is it of any use to folks like myself who just want to wirelessly hook up to the internet at home? As far as I understand, 802.11g with its 54Mb rate was exceeding 2Mb of cable most of us hooked up to. It probably played well at a physical distance compared to 802.11b, but 10 times more seems to be too much even for that.Says [wikipedia.org]:

It is projected that 802.11n will also offer a better operating distance than current networks.

Is it true? Article seems to not have the word "distance" (yes, I am too busy to read

I'm still using 802.11b at my house... we have Verizon DSL and it maxes out at about 400 kB/s down, 50 kB/s up. 802.11b seems to be more than enough for my needs. Obviously, I'd buy 802.11g if I were getting new stuff, but I don't know why it's something to get my panties in a twist over.

Why exactly are people so excited by faster wireless networking when very few of them actually HAVE the "fat pipes" to connect to. Is there ANY residential cable/DSL service that actually exceeds the capacity of 802.11g?

Oh, and I serve files too... I run a small webserver off my computer, via my 802.11b connection. I don't play FPS games though I do enjoy a good networked game of FreeCiv. I also ssh into my home computer a lot from work etc., and the latency of a terminal window is almost imperceptible compared to a local login.

Why exactly are people so excited by faster wireless networking when very few of them actually HAVE the "fat pipes" to connect to. Is there ANY residential cable/DSL service that actually exceeds the capacity of 802.11g?

The speed of my Internet connection has absolutely NOTHING to do with how much bandwidth I need between the computers and other devices on my network.

For example, transferring a show from the living room Tivo to the bedroom Tivo happens at roughly 1x FF speed over 100 Mbps ethernet, but take

When mixing & matching 802.11b devices on an 802.11a or g network, the faster a and g devices are often slowed to b speeds. One hopes this will not happen with n.

As for buying in advance, one also hopes that firmware upgrades will allow early adopters to conform to the final spec. when it's released. Does anyone know which manufacturers are better or worse at providing effective firmmware patches in this regard?

Actually the presence of 802.11b devices on a 802.11g network will slow the network down, just not all the way to b speed. See this table [wikibooks.org] for example. As stated there, you seem to drop about a third of the speed, and noting the source [PDF] [atheros.com], I'd assume that data is reliable.

It also stands to reason that with a network using CSMA/CD (like 802.11 a/b/g), of course having a slower device on the network is going to decrease the total available throughput. Only one station at once can be transmitting, so you can easily say that the scarce resource on the network is time. A slow node is using that time less efficiently, by taking more time to transfer each bit. Which of course leaves proportionally less time available to all of the other nodes on the network.

When mixing & matching 802.11b devices on an 802.11a or g network, the faster a and g devices are often slowed to b speeds.

Not so. 802.11a works at a completely different frequency and couldn't give a rat's backside about the presence of b or g. It's only g that's had performance issues when b got involved precisely because it is backward compatible.

Let the new 802.11n operate up at 5GHz with 802.11a so that b and g don't slow it down and can continue to operate as they are and I'd be a happy camper

Next we'll get into how spelling is a key component of communication and whether Times-Roman is far more readable than Courier...

No, that subject would be off-topic. But because you brought it up,;-), an equally important issue is whether one is reading for "readability" or comprehension. Print out a man page some time using a fixed-pitch font, read it aloud and see if you don't parse each word, sentence and punctuation mark in the way a lawyer would when reading or writing a contract. And then compare

I agree, however, as long as we're getting 'liter-anal' about other users' grammar, I feel compelled to point out that you used the term "half-assed" as an ad-verb instead of an adjective. Either use:
"but don't half-assedly try to..."
or
"but don't try half-assedly to..."
or
"but don't make a half-assed attempt at making yourself..."

Why in the world would you buy a "Pre-N" router? You need a compatible card and router, which is not cheap, and will probably be incompatible.

The title is also decieving;

"The current draft of the 802.11n standard was approved for letter ballot in March; the full standard is expected to be ratified by the second quarter of 2007."

So anything you buy will not work with what you buy when it's fully ratified. Pre-g, anyone?

"During eWEEK Labs' tests, Linksys products based on Version 1.0 of the 802.11n draft standard were indeed fast--faster than anything we've tested to date--but issues with range and interference with legacy wireless networks show room for improvement."

Speed may be important, but reliability is more important. Most internet connections aren't even close to that fast, and if it doesn't have range or reliability, why would you use it on a LAN?

Gamers, who would benifit from this, use wired mice for similar reasons; batteries don't die in wired mice, no lag, no problems. Same reasons that they wouldn't use 802.11n: If 802.11n can't deliver reliability, why use it?

And backwards compatibility? That's one of the most important points of all! Sheesh.

I wouldn't worry about it so much. Most SOHO manufactures D-Link, LinkSys, Netgear etc shipped products of 802.11G before it was ratified and they didn't run into any major hiccups as far as I know. It's pretty common for companies to push products before the standard has been ratified. No one is going to produce chips unless they are confident it will be safe when the standard is completely ratified. Often just a firmware update will complete the standard.

Why use it? Well, MIMO-based wireless tends to do a better job with interference and range. In fact, coverage may be the big seller here as broadband internet speeds dont even come close to B let along N. People aren't complaining about speed (well most anyway) they complain about coverage.The thoroughput is very nice in situations where you have a home network with all the same brand network gear. Say you download a 1+gig movie on your desktop but decide you want to watch it on your laptop downstairs. At

Great, I just bought X type product and now they come out with something newer to screw us into spending more money. Someone wake me when they stop this nonsense so I can buy one last product and die in peace!

Did anyone notice that the numbers are not very impressive? The Asus Wireless G had 85% of the throughput of the Linksys WRT300N, and much better range degradation. I think that Linksyss claim of 4X the range and 12X the speed of other G class hardware falls flat on its face!

I am actually pretty satisfied with the speed of my 'G' system I would rather they would have focused their efforts on 'reliable speed at a DISTANCE' (without having to erect a GIANT antenna, boosters, etc...)

There is always the question of power. You can have good signal quality on a military radar, but it also glows green in the night. All radiocomms are already thought out for some while now; The advances are algorithmic - you get better signal Signal-to-Noise ratio by more creative usage of bandwidth and frequency. But for signal penetration there are only two solutions: lower the frequency - longer waves penetrate better, or pump up the juice. I, for one, don't welcome my new green brain frying router overl

Frankly, 802.11 is more than good enough for me on the bandwidth front. The problems with 802.11 to me are the per-wap RANGE.

When does 802.16 / wimax actually hit market for real? I want a wireless protocol robust enough it can be realistically used for ISPs. I'm sick of being alternately gouged by cable and dsl companies for service which isn't as good as what I got 10 years ago as a dialup customer.

You can buy wimax distribution systems now, alvarion has one, navini has one, but the problem is that they're based on a protocol that isn't finished. In the meantime, have a look at hiperLan gear, it's not half bad, for the meantime.

In the year 2000:
Dell: "Essentially, Dell was responsible for selecting, if not necessarily developing, many of the technologies in today's desktop computers and servers. Among standards for which he said Dell deserves credit are 802.11 wireless networking"